When they were going to restore one of the ancient buildings that makes up the police complex, they decided to cover it with a scrim depicting real cops—one from each division. It was a way to present a personal face of the police to the citizens of Paris, who are historically suspicious of law enforcement.
Nobody asked me to pose for one of those photographs. Too bad. Who better to bridge the gap than Luc of the Street?
I'm not surprised for a lot of reasons. I'm too much of an individual ("rogue" is the word I've heard), not a favorite of the administrators, and not exactly a clean cut example of an upstanding officer of the law (take that to mean whatever you want).
I try to fit in, I really do. Ever since Bruno took me off the streets and brought me home to live with his family, ever since the Academy, I've worked hard to blend in with The People. Even now, after being off the streets for two-thirds of my life, I'm constantly checking myself. It's exhausting.
The problem is, I was born to the gutter and spent my formative years there. By the time Bruno found me, I had seventeen years of it. At that point, it was like taking Tarzan out of the jungle. I'm not being poetic; I was a predatory animal, there's no other way to say it. Most people would have left me out there, a lost cause beyond taming, but Bruno was also from the mean streets, and he was undaunted. Only once did he confess he'd had second thoughts: when my squad was ambushed. But I don't want to talk about that now. The point is, every now and then, my animal urges come out. Call it a lapse, a lack of focus, but that's what everyone gets stuck on. Nobody sees the long stretches of time I flow with the norm. But I guess that's why they call it fitting in.
I have to confess something, and I know I risk sounding like a sociopath, but when I try to fit in, I feel like I'm betraying something, or someone. Maybe it's my old friends on the street, maybe it's myself, I don't know. But I think that's why I fight against the tide so much. It's like I'm killing myself off day by day, selling myself like a whore in the Pigalle. The more I succeed at fitting in, the more I hate myself.
